SF housing development planned on former nuclear test site

Chris Roberts, San Francisco magazine

Published 3:23 pm, Thursday, January 12, 2017

In a plan stretching into the 2020s, FivePoint proposes to build up to 12,000 homes at the Shipyard and at Candlestick Point. As of December 2016, 205 homes had been finished, but that was before the EPA put an indefinite hold on the development.

In a plan stretching into the 2020s, FivePoint proposes to build up...

Up on the hill above the former Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory in the Hunters Point shipyard, there’s an asphalt-topped basketball court. But good luck getting a game. One of the rims is gone, and even if it weren’t, there’s nobody around anyway, even on the kind of sunny afternoon that packs parks all over the city. Hanging out here, near the dilapidated fences marked with yellow-and-black signs warning of “multiple environmental and health hazards”—eerie and foreboding, even in the middle of the day—just isn’t something people do.

But city leaders are hoping they someday will. Further up the hill from the lab and a block or so away, condos rise out of the ground, some of the 12,000 homes slated to fill a planned neighborhood tabbed the San Francisco Shipyard. Almost out of sight is the derelict lab, a windowless, seven-story monolith of a building where the U.S. Navy once stored dangerous radioactive material like depleted uranium in shielded “caves” and conducted nuclear experiments while workers ate lunch in the next room. The old lab is on Crisp Road, which is where the S.F. Shipyard wants to site its jaunty retail strip. The field across the road and flush up against the bay shore is where the parks and kids’ playing fields are envisioned. This is the shipyard’s old landfill, 22 acres of buried radium dials, sandblasted waste from irradiated ships, and God knows what else. (Even the navy, in a running theme, doesn’t claim to know everything that’s in there.)

Today, heaps of dirt from the area sit here beneath vast black tarps. This was where a brush fire smoldered for a month back in 2000 before the navy copped to what locals could clearly see from their windows: The local EPA Superfund site was burning. At night, says Marie Harrison, a longtime resident and environmental activist, you could see multicolored flames, sometimes glowing green—a surefire sign of toxins. This is the land the city tried to use to cajole the 49ers into staying in San Francisco. Instead, the team fled to Santa Clara. “I don’t blame them,” says Harrison.

It was always going to take a great deal of time and effort—and money—to transform the decrepit shipyard into a hipster- and family-friendly neighborhood with thousands of homes, acres of parks and greenways, ball fields, and perhaps five million square feet of office space. So far, only 90 of the more than 500 acres of navy land have been handed over by the navy for development, and only 205 homes were completed as of December. Most of the former military base is still a Superfund site, with low-level radiation emanating from the landfill, storm drains, sewer lines, and various buildings where the navy ran a regional clearinghouse for radioactive waste and prepared for a Soviet attack by, among other things, operating a particle accelerator and injecting radioactive material into living creatures to see what would happen. (In short: bad things.) But San Francisco needs the S.F. Shipyard. Without 21st-century housing atop the land where the navy processed nuclear-age ships, Mayor Ed Lee can’t meet his pledge of 30,000 new or refurbished homes by 2020.

Getting to this point, with those 205 homes sitting in a wasteland, has required decades. Now whatever comes next may take quite a bit longer: In September, the process of handing over land was placed on indefinite hold. Thanks to an environmental scandal of still unknown proportions, the shipyard’s transformation has ground to a halt. How long of a grind we’re in for remains an open question.

In a plan stretching into the 2020s, FivePoint proposes to build up to 12,000 homes at the Shipyard and at Candlestick Point. As of December 2016, 205 homes had been finished, but that was before the EPA put an indefinite hold on the development.

In a plan stretching into the 2020s, FivePoint proposes to build up...

Building a new neighborhood on top of an environmental blight works like this: The navy must clean up the land—removing more-mundane toxins like cancer-causing PCBs and petroleum by-products as well as scary-sounding radionuclides like cesium and radium, which the navy spilled on buildings and in dirt and tossed into the landfill—before it’s given to the city. Environmental watchdogs from the EPA, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, and the local Department of Public Health observe the process and verify that the land is clean (or at least clean enough for people to live on). Then the city transfers it to the developer FivePoint, a new entity whose majority shareholder, Miami-based megadeveloper Lennar Urban, negotiated the original agreement.

Since the United States Navy is in the national defense business and not the environmental cleanup business, it decades ago contracted the cleanup job out. And the contractor—a massive Pasadena-based company called Tetra Tech with a long history of winning government contracts—has admitted to misdeeds in at least part of its work at the shipyard.

Tetra Tech has been on the job here since at least the mid-1990s, according to the navy. (Exactly when the company began analyzing water and soil at the site is another thing the navy has admitted it can’t quite put its finger on.) Following complaints from whistle-blowers that the cleanup was being botched, Tetra Tech employees admitted that between 2011 and 2012, they were tasked with pulling soil samples from an area known to be clean and passing them off as soil from an area known to be contaminated. And these bait and switches might be the tip of the radioactive iceberg.

Out of more than 25,000 soil samples pulled over a 23-year period, the navy has so far identified 386 as “anomalous,” it admitted in an email. Several ongoing state and federal investigations are now trying to ascertain exactly how clean the shipyard really is; the collective goal, per a September 13 letter from the EPA to the navy, is that “the actual potential public exposure to radioactive material at and near” the shipyard be “clarified.” Until then, the transfer of more than 400 acres of land has been halted.

“It’s alarming,” says Bradley Angel, executive director of the San Francisco–based environmental nonprofit Greenaction. Angel and his outfit are calling for the navy to fire Tetra Tech immediately, and for its decades of work to be rechecked: “We don’t think any of this can be trusted.”

Greenaction further insists that the prospect of thousands of homes mushrooming in the city’s southeast would remain problematic even if Tetra Tech’s work was beyond reproach. That’s because, according to academics with UC Santa Cruz’s Environmental and Nuclear Policy Program, the navy’s definition of “clean” is, in fact, dirty by the EPA’s own definition.

In its plan to clean up the shipyard, the navy used standards that date from as far back as 1974, UCSC lecturer Dan Hirsch pointed out in a presentation he gave at a public meeting. That would allow exposure to radioactive material at rates in excess of current EPA marks by a factor of several hundred—and in some cases, Hirsch claimed, several thousand.

Both the EPA and FivePoint dispute Hirsch’s findings. FivePoint also questions his credentials, pointing out that he is merely an “activist” and not a nuclear physicist. (For the record, an actual nuclear physicist, UC Berkeley’s Kai Vetter, tells San Francisco that the navy’s Cold War–era cleanup standards are acceptable for habitation.) The EPA claims that the navy’s cleanup has achieved modern radiation standards, in part because of protective layers of either concrete or two feet of soil installed over trouble areas at the shipyard—though these standards also forbid any shipyard resident from growing edible plants, except in raised beds using imported soil, and leave other areas of the former navy base off-limits to hospitals, schools, or other uses that could serve children.

The EPA and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are conducting probes. And in November, the navy finally got around to fulfilling a six-week-old request from Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Malia Cohen for a briefing on the situation—but only after Representative Nancy Pelosi got involved. After apologizing for the mess, the delay, and letting political leaders find out about the situation via the press, the navy offered to hire a third party to review some of Tetra Tech’s work and promised regular updates. Pelosi secured an extra $7 million in the federal budget to pay for this, atop the $43.9 million allotted for shipyard cleanup costs this year alone. That it took her prodding for the navy to step-to indicates how serious the problem already is—and how bad it will be if things get worse.

FILE - Two black occupants of this car are held at bay by California National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets in the Hunters Point riot area of San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966. The car was stopped when it was suspected of carrying guns and ammunition. The area was secured by Guardsmen who imposed curfew. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston)

FILE - Two black occupants of this car are held at bay by California National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets in the Hunters Point riot area of San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966. The car was stopped when it was

FILE - The bullet-riddled car in foreground is mute evidence of fire fight between a black sniper and police at Newcomb and Mendell Streets Bay View-Hunters Point area in San Francisco, Sept. 29, 1966. The sniper, police said, was wounded. In the background is South San Francisco's Opera House. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - The bullet-riddled car in foreground is mute evidence of fire fight between a black sniper and police at Newcomb and Mendell Streets Bay View-Hunters Point area in San Francisco, Sept. 29, 1966. The

FILE - Howard Bacon, 54, of 1600 Newcomb St., San Francisco, was standing on the porch of his home when a black sniper jumped behind his car and started firing at police in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966. They responded in kind and Bacon sadly looks at his damaged auto. The shooting took place near Third and Newcomb Streets in San Francisco's Bay View and Hunters Point riot area. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston)

FILE - Howard Bacon, 54, of 1600 Newcomb St., San Francisco, was standing on the porch of his home when a black sniper jumped behind his car and started firing at police in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966. They

FILE - The bayoneted rifles of the California National Guard are silhouetted against the flames of a lumber yard fire in San Francisco's Bay View district, Sept. 30, 1966, where blacks were throwing fire bomb. Guards were assigned to fire trucks to protect firemen from snipers. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - The bayoneted rifles of the California National Guard are silhouetted against the flames of a lumber yard fire in San Francisco's Bay View district, Sept. 30, 1966, where blacks were throwing fire bomb.

FILE - California Highway Patrolman stands armed guard over firebombed auto at Hahn and Sunnydale Streets in San Francisco, Sept. 30, 1966. Blacks rioted in various areas of San Francisco including the Bay View districts. This auto is in Visitation Valley area, south of Bay View. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - California Highway Patrolman stands armed guard over firebombed auto at Hahn and Sunnydale Streets in San Francisco, Sept. 30, 1966. Blacks rioted in various areas of San Francisco including the Bay

FILE - John Nerio wields broom on Third Street near Hunters Point in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966. He was cleaning up glass from one of a number of broken windows which resulted from rioting in the area at night. The riot followed shooting of a youth who fled from a stolen car in afternoon. (AP Photo/Ernest K. Bennett)

FILE - John Nerio wields broom on Third Street near Hunters Point in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966. He was cleaning up glass from one of a number of broken windows which resulted from rioting in the area at

FILE - California National Guardsmen, mobilized by Gov. Edmund G. Brown, march up Third Street with bayonets fixed, clearing blacks from the streets before the 8 p.m. curfews in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966. A number of blacks and police were injured in the rioting in San Franciscos Bay View-Hunters Point district. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston)

FILE - California National Guardsmen, mobilized by Gov. Edmund G. Brown, march up Third Street with bayonets fixed, clearing blacks from the streets before the 8 p.m. curfews in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966.

FILE - Some of the 2,000 National Guardsmen mobilized by Gov. Edmund G. Brown as the result of a riot by blacks in the Third Street district of San Francisco, stand inspection after reporting at Fort Funston Sept. 28, 1966. The rock-throwing, window-breaking outbreak occurred after a police officer shot and killed a black youth in the area. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - Some of the 2,000 National Guardsmen mobilized by Gov. Edmund G. Brown as the result of a riot by blacks in the Third Street district of San Francisco, stand inspection after reporting at Fort Funston

FILE - National Guardsmen mobilized by Gov. Edmund G. Brown for possible duty in the riot-torn Third Street area of San Francisco, blow up air mattresses at a military installation as they prepare to catch a few hours sleep, Sept. 28, 1966. Rocks were thrown, windows broken, cars burned and many persons injured by crowds of blacks after a white policeman shot and killed a 16-year-old black boy. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - National Guardsmen mobilized by Gov. Edmund G. Brown for possible duty in the riot-torn Third Street area of San Francisco, blow up air mattresses at a military installation as they prepare to catch a

FILE - A helmeted San Francisco police officer stands guard in the doorway of a Third Street food and meat market after its windows had been shattered by rioters in San Francisco's Hunters Point, a predominantly black area, Sept. 28, 1966. The riots were touched off by the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old black boy running from a car police reported stolen. As a result of a night of disorders Gov. Edmund G. Brown has ordered 2,000 National Guardsmen into the area after a state of emergency had been declared. The troops will be on a standby basis and ready for action. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - Three San Francisco policemen stand guard on Third Street in area blocked off by police in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966, after city officials moved hurriedly to quell a potential riot. Earlier a white patrolman shot and killed a black youth running from a stolen car. Several hundred blacks milled through streets of the Hunters Point housing project and Third Street, breaking store windows and throwing rocks at police cars. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - Three San Francisco policemen stand guard on Third Street in area blocked off by police in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966, after city officials moved hurriedly to quell a potential riot. Earlier a white

FILE - The window of this dress shop in the Third Street district of San Francisco displayed the latest styles until rioting black youths moved in with stones, Sept. 28, 1966. The outbreak, sparked by the fatal shooting of 16-year-old black boy, resulted in Gov. Edmund G. Brown mustering 2,000 National Guardsmen for standby duty. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - The window of this dress shop in the Third Street district of San Francisco displayed the latest styles until rioting black youths moved in with stones, Sept. 28, 1966. The outbreak, sparked by the fatal

FILE - Shotgun-toting San Francisco police stand guard at Oakdale and Third Street, blocking off the area, after several hundred blacks went on a window-breaking rampage, in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old black by a police office, Sept. 28, 1966. A state of emergency was declared, and 2,000 National Guardsmen are being mobilized on a standby basis. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - Shotgun-toting San Francisco police stand guard at Oakdale and Third Street, blocking off the area, after several hundred blacks went on a window-breaking rampage, in the aftermath of the fatal shooting

FILE - Police armed with shotguns and riot sticks patrol along Third Street in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966, after a night of rioting by several hundred blacks. A state of emergency has been declared and 2,000 National Guardsmen have been ordered mobilized by Gov. Edmund G. Brown for standby duty. The rioting resulted from the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old black boy by a police officer. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - Police armed with shotguns and riot sticks patrol along Third Street in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966, after a night of rioting by several hundred blacks. A state of emergency has been declared and

FILE - California Gov. Edmund G. Brown talks on phone from the San Francisco Hall of Justice, Sept. 29, 1966, after arriving in the city to assess the riot situation in the Bay View-Hunters Point and Fillmore districts. He conferred with Mayor Shelley and Chief of Police Thomas Cahill. The governor ordered 4,000 National Guard troops into action to put down riots. At least 2,000 troops are active with another 2,000 in reserve. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston)

FILE - California Gov. Edmund G. Brown talks on phone from the San Francisco Hall of Justice, Sept. 29, 1966, after arriving in the city to assess the riot situation in the Bay View-Hunters Point and Fillmore

FILE - View of Third Street at intersection of Palou in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966, scene of some of the most violent rioting last night near Hunters Point. Second intersection is Oakdale. Except for broken windows and several police cars in the area, the scene is completely normal. (AP Photo/Ernest K. Bennett)

FILE - View of Third Street at intersection of Palou in San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966, scene of some of the most violent rioting last night near Hunters Point. Second intersection is Oakdale. Except for broken

FILE - Two police officers, one of them armed with a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight, view the windshield of their squad car which was smashed by a stone thrown by rioters in the Third Street area of San Francisco, Sept. 28, 1966. The riot was precipitated by the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old black boy and resulted in mobilization of 2,000 National Guardsmen on the order of Gov. Edmund G. Brown. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - Two police officers, one of them armed with a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight, view the windshield of their squad car which was smashed by a stone thrown by rioters in the Third Street area

FILE - Officers Robert Hulsey and Patrick Byrne talk to group of youths on street corner in the Bayview- Hunters Point riot area in San Francisco, Sept. 29, 1966. The policemen told the group not to linger on the streets, but to go to school. The National Guard who patrolled the area all night were pulled out early. (AP Photo/Ernest K. Bennett)

FILE - Officers Robert Hulsey and Patrick Byrne talk to group of youths on street corner in the Bayview- Hunters Point riot area in San Francisco, Sept. 29, 1966. The policemen told the group not to linger on

FILE - This sage bit of advice appeared on a downtown San Francisco theater marquee, Sept. 29, 1966, but was not heeded in the riot-torn Bay View and Hunters Point areas. (AP Photo)

FILE - This sage bit of advice appeared on a downtown San Francisco theater marquee, Sept. 29, 1966, but was not heeded in the riot-torn Bay View and Hunters Point areas. (AP Photo)

Photo: AP

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FILE - Armed California National Guards, shotgun-armed police and California Highway Patrolmen stand at a citizen deserted Fillmore and Geary street intersection in San Francisco, Sept. 29, 1966, after riots were quickly put down in the area. A tense quiet prevailed. Police and guardsmen were stationed at each corner in the troubled zone. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - Where police and sniper bullets flowed 24 hours ago, blacks were meeting in the Bay View Community Center in San Francisco, Sept. 29, 1966, to set up their own Peace Patrol with sponsorship of the San Francisco Police. The white arm-banded patrolmen are to police the residential district of Bay View-Hunters Point area, with San Francisco police covering the business district on Third Street. Note bullet holes in upper windows of the center. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - Where police and sniper bullets flowed 24 hours ago, blacks were meeting in the Bay View Community Center in San Francisco, Sept. 29, 1966, to set up their own Peace Patrol with sponsorship of the San

FILE - With the exception of extra policemen on the street, there was no indication that rioting was in the air San Francisco's Fillmore District, Sept. 29, 1966. Police, National Guard and California Highway Patrol officers sealed off the area to quell riot outbreak. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston)

FILE - With the exception of extra policemen on the street, there was no indication that rioting was in the air San Francisco's Fillmore District, Sept. 29, 1966. Police, National Guard and California Highway

FILE - San Francisco police, armed with shotguns, stand guard in front of the wrecked and looted Spotlite liquor store on Third Street of Bay View district in San Francisco, Sept. 29, 1966, after blacks broke windows and looted goods. The National Guard was called to restore order. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston)

FILE - San Francisco police, armed with shotguns, stand guard in front of the wrecked and looted Spotlite liquor store on Third Street of Bay View district in San Francisco, Sept. 29, 1966, after blacks broke

FILE - California National Guards, ordered into service by Gov. Edmund G. Brown, imposed the curfew on riot-torn San Franciscos Bay View-Hunters Point area, Sept. 29, 1966, after shooting broke out between

FILE - Sylvester Brown, a member of the quickly-organized Peace Patrol in the Bay View-Hunters Point area of San Francisco, tells three girls to leave the streets as curfew time approaches, Sept. 29, 1966. San Francisco police have authorized the Peace Patrol to police the residential area east of Third Street. They are identified by white arm bands. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

FILE - Sylvester Brown, a member of the quickly-organized Peace Patrol in the Bay View-Hunters Point area of San Francisco, tells three girls to leave the streets as curfew time approaches, Sept. 29, 1966. San

FILE - Although racial rioting in San Francisco appeared to be non-existent, California National Guards were still traveling with the citys fire trucks, Oct. 1, 1966. These guards appeared on the scene of a three-alarm fire in a rubber tire company in San Francisco's downtown area. City officials said they did not anticipate any outbreaks. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston)

FILE - Although racial rioting in San Francisco appeared to be non-existent, California National Guards were still traveling with the citys fire trucks, Oct. 1, 1966. These guards appeared on the scene of a

There are some vestiges of Hunters Point’s nuclear and military heritage that are here to stay. Some of them are too big to move, like the 8,400-ton gantry crane standing astride one of the piers, a gently oxidizing monster that’s become the S.F. Shipyard’s de facto symbol. At the time of its construction in 1947, when it graced the cover of Popular Mechanics, it was the world’s biggest crane, strong enough to suspend a battleship’s 400-ton turret in midair. But even brand-new, it was a bit of an albatross: Thanks to air power, battleships bristling with guns were largely obsolete even before World War II concluded. Thus, nearly all of the naval work done at the shipyard before it closed in 1974 was on aircraft carriers and submarines. The developers of this land are keen to play on its industrial nostalgia. But the shipyard’s past was a mixed bag. And its future is uncertain.

Other remnants of the past are too dangerous to move, like whatever lies buried not far from Marie Harrison’s former Hunters Point home. A decade ago, when the scariest health risk in the area was asbestos-laced dust dislodged from hillsides, Harrison knew almost everyone who lived in the nearby projects and houses. “Now they’re all gone,” she says, driven away by the city’s hard economics as well as the neighborhood’s health hazards: a now-shuttered PG&E gas-fired power plant; an open-air sewage treatment plant; and, most of all, the low-level radiation emanating from the shipyard. This is what Harrison and other locals agitated about for decades. Their concerns have, at last, been acknowledged. But too late: “They all moved away.” So did Harrison; she now lives in Stockton.

Those people are out of the picture. What’s coming into focus is the promise of tens of thousands of new people moving onto the land. If the S.F. Shipyard is found to be dirtier than we know, it will be a potential environmental disaster—and, in housing-starved San Francisco, an economic one as well. “I would be somewhat concerned as a parent moving into the new development,” notes Vetter, the UC Berkeley physicist, despite his declaration of the site’s habitability.

“However, I would be concerned as a developer and an investor, too. Imagine, billions of dollars of investments, and then someone finds a piece of radium! The value of this investment would go to zero very quickly.”